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Certain rights and privileges accrued to different leaders of Holds and Masters of Crafts and, naturally, to the dragonriders who the Threadfalls
On occasion, the conjunction of Rukbat’s five natural planets would prevent the Red Star froh to Pern to drop its fearful spores To the Pernese these were Long Intervals During one such Interval, the grateful people prospered andmore holds out of solid rock, just in case Thread returned But they became so busy with their daily pursuits that they preferred to think that the Red Star had indeed passed beyond any danger to them
No one realized that only a few dragons reonriders was left on Pern Since the Red Star wasn’t due to return for a long, long while, if ever, orry? Within five generations, the descendants of the heroic dragonends of past braveries and the very reason for their existence fell into disrepute
Voluins when the Red Star, obeying natural forces, began to spin closer to Pern, winking with a baleful red eye on its ancient viction Mnementh, believed that the ancient tales had truth in them His half-brother, F’nor, rider of brown Canth, listened to his argu of a dying queen dragon lay hardening on the Benden Weyr Hatching Ground, F’lar and F’nor saw an opportunity to gain control of the Weyr Searching for a strong-minded woman to ride the soon-to-be-hatched queen, F’lar and F’nor discovered Lessa, the only surviving member of the proud Bloodline of Ruatha Hold She I Ramoth, the new queen, and became Weyrwo queen in her first onriders
The three—Lessa, F’lar and F’nor—then forced the Lord Holders and Craftser and to prepare their alainst Thread Obviously the scant two hundred dragons of Benden Weyr would not be able to defend the sprawling settlements Six full Weyrs had been needed in the olden days when the settled land had been more limited in area than it noas An abortive atteotten southern continent But that didn’t work
However, in learning to direct her queen dragon between one place and another, Lessa discovered that dragons could alsoher life as well as Pern’s only queen dragon, Lessa and Ramoth went back in time, four hundred Turns, before the mysterious disappearance of the other five Weyrs, and just after the last Pass of the Red Star had been co only the decline of their prestige and bored with inactivity after a lifetireed to help Lessa’s Weyr These people from the past came forward to her time and saved Pern
Voluonquest picks up the story seven Turns later, when the initial gratitude and relief of Holds and Crafts had faded and soured The Oldtimers themselves did not like the Pern of the future in which they were now living Four hundred Turns had brought too es The Oldtirateful population, found themselves at odds with the Lord Holders and the Crafthalls—and especially with Benden Weyr and its liberal leaders
Tensions between the two factions ca F’nor and an Oldtionrider F’nor was sent off to the newly resettled southern continent to recover from his wound Meanwhile F’lar confronted the Oldti of all but two Weyrleaders Little was decided at thebut it beca as much responsibility for their duties as they should F’lar’s arguen Weyr, both Oldtiood look at their conteun to fall at unexpected times and the charts, carefully prepared by F’lar from the old Records, had somehow lost their validity At that point Robinton, the Master Harper of Pern, and the Mastersmith, Fandarel, joined forces with the Benden leaders to try to cope with the new eency To help matters Fandarel developed a device that he hoped would provide co the Holds and Halls
Meanwhile in the Southern Weyr, F’nor was being nursed by a young queenrider, Brekke, when he accidentally discovered that fire-lizards, previously disends or fantasies, actually existed and could also be Ienetic cousins, the dragons, were Kylara, a passionate and disgruntled Weyrwos which she took to Lord Meron of Nabol, one of the most troublesome of the Lord Holders
Sue about the fire-lizards, F’lar headed for Southern Weyr where he observed that T’bor, the young Leader, was having trouble with his Weyrwoman, the sensuous Kylara When Threadfall ca a very curious phenoetation, he discovered a curious and very active insect in the soil and brought sarany, an opinionatedwhat he had observed, took issue with the rubs with the aid of F’nor, now returned to the Weyr, and N’ton, craftbred young rider of bronze Lioth
Soon Lord Lytol, guardian of the young Jaxoht to Ruatha Hold, visited Benden Weyr to discuss the tense situation with F’lar, Lessa, Robinton and Fandarel He brought Jaxom with him as his as friendly with F’lessan, only son of F’lar and Lessa While the adults were talking, the two boys sneaked into the unused passageways of Benden Weyr for a peek at Ra Ground The boys becahtened by the unexpected return of the queen and quickly lost their way in the dark corridors, inadvertently discovering sootten rooms A search party found the boys unconscious and discovered musty roo an instrus that quickly becaested that a discreet search beinteresting should turn up to fill in the gaps of lost knowledge
Shortly thereafter Kylara and Lord Meron appeared at the wedding of Lord Asgenar and Telgar’s sister at Telgar Hold with fire-lizards on their arm
s, causing considerable co the wedding feast with the news that Thread was unaccountably falling at Igen F’lar requested the help from the other Weyrleaders and T’ron found this an excuse to challenge the Benden Weyrleader to a duel froed the victor and banished T’ron and any other Oldtie that he was to be the overall Weyrleader Lord Holders and Craftmasters alike supported F’lar Oldtien and R’h Reaches joined T’ron in exile with seventy other Oldtionfolk F’lar, despite his wound, insisted on flying Thread at Igen, by going between time to the start of Threadfall
The forh Reaches Weyr which had been left in a shocking state Brekke, unaware that her queen Wirenth was about to rise for her first an to restore order to the Weyr while Kylara enjoyed herself with Lord Meron Unfortunately Kylara’s queen Prideth, was also close toand when Wirenth rose, so did Prideth A battle ensued between the two queens in which the other queens tried to separate the combatants Canth desperately attempted to save Wirenth But both queens wereKylara a e of sanity Only F’nor’s love and Canth’s devotion and the constant companionship of the little fire-lizards kept her alive
Meanwhile, guided by the principles of the Benden device, Fandarel and Wansor constructed a powerful distance-viewer that made it possible to see both the cloud-swirled surface of the Red Star and so of the other planets in the syste others, arrived at Fort Weyr, intent on testing the new far-viewer But Meron insisted that now that the face of the Red Star could be seen, dragonet there So he attempted to send his little fire-lizard on the journey The little creature not only disappeared in fright, but hten the other fire-lizards as well